Grown Up Thinking

YouTube has recently announced it will be revamping its site by focusing on ad-supported premium programming (a la Hulu) and completely separating the user-generated content that has long accounted for most of the site’s traffic. The redesign will now include four tabs for browsing: Movies, Music, Shows (all ad supported) and Videos (user-generated content.) I assume this change will definitely ruffle some feathers as the very content that built YouTube up to its current status as the #1 destination for video is largely being relegated to a digital ‘back shelf.’ One could argue that the site’s unique and personal feel will be lost in addition to  bombarding end users with more and more commercials. On the other hand, promoting premium content and features (including the truly nifty “pop-out” and “dim the light” features of Hulu) could potentially add more quality and value to the site.

I’m anxiously waiting to see how YouTube will ultimately pull it off. I’m admittedly a fan of both sites for their very different approaches. But I would worry that taking the You out of YouTube would take some serious value out of the equation for the masses. The balance between the two will definitely need to be maintained to ensure that quality, content and utility end up benefiting consumers. Then it can truly be an advantageous relationship between people and advertising.

Tags: hulu, marketing, social media, viral, YouTube

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 3:02 pm and is filed under social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.